A light bright and tiny: Scientists build a better nanoscale LED: New design overcomes long-standing LED efficiency problem -- and can transform into a laser to boot

A new design for light-emitting diodes achieves a dramatic increase in brightness as well as the ability to create laser light -- characteristics that could make it valuable in a range of applications. The device shows an increase in brightness of 100 to 1,000 times over conventional submicron-sized LED designs.